After a few crazy weeks we are finally getting back to normal. Now that Casey is off all of her extra treatments and meds we can start to get back to our previous goals. We finally started to use the Farrell bags again today. Since we just started back up I can not give info on how she will do with it, but I can offer pictures and more details of how this works. I know when I was trying to research it finding good pics were hard to come by. Hopefully these can help clear up any questions for other parents looking into Farrell as an option for their refluxing child.

Okay, to start up the bag you can choose to connect it via gravity or pump feed. We are starting with the pump since that is our main feed source now. If she does well we will work our way up to gravity feeds. The Farrell bag has to be level with your feed source. In our case it is the pump bag. You can see in this picture that there is an empty bag (the Farrell bag) and our full pump bag.

The pump bag still run through the pump like normal. Instead of plugging directly into Casey’s extension the pump line now plugs into a “Y” valve on the Farrell line. The Farrell line then plugs into the extension. Casey’s extension is plugged into the Farrell line. It is just out of this shot. You can see in this picture the “Y” connection that the Farrell bag plugs the red connector from the pump. The other side of the “Y” goes up to the empty Farrell bag.

It is hard to see, but the Farrell line backs up the line to the point that would be even with Casey’s belly button. The “Y” has to sit below her belly button. We put Casey in her feeder seat so there is plenty of room below to lay the line.

Casey doesn’t like to sit up for long periods of time, so that is going to be our biggest challenge with this method. We need to get her upright more anyway, so I guess we are tackling two challenges at once with this. After she eats we have to leave her in the upright position for about an hour to let everything settle.

As we try it out over the next few days we will track her progress. Hopefully our next post will have good reviews of the system.

On a separate topic, Casey is really teething a lot again. You can see a bunch coming in on this picture.